San Jose Mercury News (Friday, 11/14/03)

Discussion in 'San Jose Earthquakes' started by Goodsport, Nov 14, 2003.

  1. JMichaels

    JMichaels New Member

    Feb 17, 2003
    Sorry I missed the mudslinging today in this conversation. Some of us work and don't have time to converse like Spartacus. Besides, I was the one who used to fetch his banger with onions and sneak the beer into Spartan.

    Hope everyone takes a step back and review the passion of everyone's comments in this conversation.

    Thus is the job of collumnists in the media. They are to take a point and create a conversation. Ann Killion did her job, and did it well. Her job isn't to put fans into seats, its to write for a rag like the Merc.

    Those of you who followed the development of the Mercury's news coverage of the Sharks will recall that they included various means to introduce the sport to Californians. They included a fan-in-the-stands who covered a different perspective of the sport. They covered the game, they analyzed the play, they included fill stories on the players and coaches.

    It is too bad that the Merc believes that there is only enough budget funds to have a reporter cover the sport and not have someone become a soccer analysist.
     
  2. tonyh01

    tonyh01 Member

    Nov 9, 2003
    San Jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Actually, that's not really all that true, although it is what was reported. An old buddy from Junior High works in the head office, and told me what the real deal was. What they were doing was pretty lame, but they were trying to get more recognition for breaking that attendance record...that's when the questions started, and the organization "cough cough" stated that the tickets were "spoken for". However, I know for a fact that you could have walked up half way through the second period and still bought tickets during those "sold out" games.

    But then again....I am just a "newbie" who's on his way to get Spartacus a bangor with onions. That is, if I don't trip and fall due to the pressure of getting it to him while it's still warm.
     
  3. tonyh01

    tonyh01 Member

    Nov 9, 2003
    San Jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Hmmmmm....I didn't see any bangors coming up there. Better yet...I didn't get any bangors up there. What the......

    That's okay....I got to see veins pop out of heads when the ball boys didn't move on cue.


    woohoo.....I'm a "Member" now. What the....no music? So, does this mean people will read my posts now? Ahhhh....I feel like I just made it to the first grade.
     
  4. JMichaels

    JMichaels New Member

    Feb 17, 2003
    Yes, everyone knows that all events have reserved tickets for players, officials, corporate sponsors, etc. that become available to the general public after an event begins.
     
  5. tonyh01

    tonyh01 Member

    Nov 9, 2003
    San Jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yes, I know that as well, but that's not the point I was trying to make. But, there is no use having a discussion about something that isn't really worth it at this point. I just know that they weren't sell-outs before the players tickets, yadda yadda yadda, were made available. That's all!

    Really, it's no big deal.....we are all still Quakes fans, and years off from selling the place out. Who knows, a few years down the road maybe we can argue whether or not we are having true sell-outs, which is a discussion I'd love to have someday.

    Oh, and back to the point....I really can't complain about the article today. Hey, we've gotten a lot of press this week. Sure, there might be things that we don't agree with, or feel could have been written differently, but at least something was written. She works for the paper, not for the Quakes. If it was her job to put butts in the seats I might question some of the wording, but it's not. I think she wrote a good article.

    Oh, and the stuff about the judge and the speeding tickets....like they say in Hollywood....Any press is good press!
     
  6. babytiger2001

    babytiger2001 New Member

    Dec 29, 2000
    Melbourne
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Just got done reading all six pages of this thread after I made my post on the topic last night, and I just wanted to say to Spartacus, TonyH, JMichaels and the whole lot of you an important message...

    Thanks for jogging my memories, guys. I really thought I was going to get very misty-eyed again (I seem to be doing that a lot lately, must be the utter beauty of this playoff run), but after all my experience of being in the Spartan Stadium pressbox, I've come to realise that sometimes, I do miss it. Especially during this time of year.

    In a way, I kinda miss my old career, when I was covering the Quakes and MLS and American soccer as a whole-- but my career here is going well, with the recognition and awards I've been getting lately, and my life over here is pretty damn good as well.

    OK, reminiscence mode off...

    Ann Killion wrote a fantastic piece-- and as I've said, having been a critic of hers in the past, I'm not going to throw compliments her way all that often. But she deserves it, as she's painted a picture of the special moments of last weekend and what it means with what is now less than 24 hours to go before the next "biggest moment in Earthquakes history".

    Two Killion columns about the Quakes in seven days' time, that means the team must be on the brink of something special, if it hasn't happened already. Let's face it, Ann Killion and her bosses in the sports department at the San Jose Mercury-News, they're no dummies, and they know a hot story when it's out there.

    And on that note, it's not the job of the Mercury-News, or any other newspaper anywhere in the world, to promote an endeavor, but rather to report on it. We have to keep in mind that it's the tail wagging at the end of the dog, and not the other way around.

    Yet at the same time, I do think the bandwagon mentaility of Bay Area sports fans (who do this act better than anyone else in the world, mind you) comes from the way that some of the teams in the region are reported, the whole "strike while the iron's hot" mentality. That's where the local media in all its forms-- newspapers, radio, TV-- has to admit or accept a degree of guilt when it comes to this.

    Also, on something else that our dear friend Spartacus was saying, when the Mercury-News pretty much ceased to be a local newspaper with an emphasis on San Jose area news and sports and issues, and rather one for the Bay Area as a whole (it was closer to 20 years ago, IIRC, and not 10-15 years passed), it took with it a great deal of its old soul as well, and I still see that as quite tragic. From my perspective here, if a regional paper like the Ballarat Courier, the newspaper where I'm currently employed, decided that it was going to be more of a Melbourne-centric daily publication and take on the Herald-Sun and The Age in the process, it too would lose a great part of its soul as well, in the mindset of the locals here.

    But then again, the media in the time since then has re-invented itself, in ways such as the advent of the internet and forums such as BigSoccer, where we can make up for any shortcomings that we fail to be satisfied with in any of the traditional media outlets.

    If there's a way to get the word out, we will find it. And bit by bit, I hope it's working.

    Anyway, kudos to Ann Killion for another insightful and "fair dinkum" piece on the Quakes.
     
  7. JazzyJ

    JazzyJ BigSoccer Supporter

    Jun 25, 2003
    Lots of informed opinions here, and from a lot of people in the journalism field or related. But here are a few layman observations:

    - While it may be true that the Merc wants to be a "Bay Area" paper, not a "local" San Jose paper, I believe they should still have a vested interest in the financial success of "San Jose" teams. Not for any "sense of duty" but purely for business reasons. That is, if you're going to be market yourself as a Bay Area paper, it will be very helpful if the locale named on the paper is seen as a major part of that area. For example, it's not likely that a paper called the "Cupertino Times" is going to sell well as a Bay Area paper. It might but it would have an uphill marketing struggle.

    That's why you'll notice that the Merc is always trumpeting news about San Jose being the xth biggest city, being the "capital of Silicon Valley", etc. They're not doing that out of civic duty. They're doing that so that people in the Bay Area, including the north bay and peninsula, view San Jose as a major player in the area. So they'll be more likely to buy a paper that says "San Jose". Having professional sports teams based in the city is another significant straw in that cap. It makes San Jose more of a "real city", a significant city in the area. So the Merc should have at least a small vested interest in seeing that "San Jose" sports teams succeed.

    - I think what probably irked Wee Man the most about the article is the emphasis on lack of local TV coverage for last Sunday's game. It's a controversial topic, but overall it seems like a minor point in the whole Quakes story. Why emphasize it? I guess it fit into the "Invisible Success Story" theme.

    My point of view regarding lack of local TV coverage is "too bad". One of the problems San Jose has in being a "real city" is that people just don't go out. There's a lack of cultural presence. We can't even support a symphony orchestra anymore. People need to get their butts off of their couches and out to see sporting and cultural events in the city. And I don't think that local TV coverage is going to create many converts. Of all the things you can watch on TV at any given time these days, the people watching will already soccer fans who should be at the game.

    - I agree with the point some have made about making our voices heard. We should write more letters to the Merc sportswrites encouraging more coverage for the Quakes. I think it could help to some degree.
     
  8. Spartacus

    Spartacus Member

    May 20, 2001
    The NO SOCCER Zone
    What newspapers "should" do, and what they really do are two different things...and always has been.

    Since the Merc made the switch to regional, they've fought an uphill battle for readership in the Bay Area. Understand that there's an attitude from San Francisco and the Peninsula that the world drops off sharply at the Santa Clara County line (Stanford, though in Santa Clara County, gets a pass because it's still in the 650 area code). That's why they have to trumpet their self-importance as the "Capitol of Silicon Valley" etc. But they still pander to the northern interests...even to the point of, for a time, dropping the words "San Jose" off their masthead and marketing the San Francisco editions of the paper as simply "The Mercury News". That superior attitude from San Francisco north is just not going to change -- and why the Merc continues to fight in this way is beyond me. Wouldn't it make sense to differentiate yourself from your competitor by offering a Silicon-centric point of view?

    To some degree you're right...but the bigger problem is that we don't celebrate what's "local". We don't celebrate what's already ours...instead, we want to grab for the "big time". Never mind that San Jose had the oldest symphony orchestra on the West Coast...San Francisco has a Symphony Hall to "see and be seen". Likewise with opera and baseball and whathaveyou. San Jose is nice and "quaint" but San Francisco is big time.
     
  9. JazzyJ

    JazzyJ BigSoccer Supporter

    Jun 25, 2003
    My guess is that battling for larger Bay Area readership is actually the right thing for them to do business-wise. Yes, it may seem like an uphill battle. And yes, they're going to have an extremely difficult time in the North Bay due to the prevailing attitudes there. But I think they're really battling for the "gray areas", south pensinsula, parts of the East Bay, etc. They probably already dominate in the South Bay, so being a "local" paper doesn't do them that much good. Yes, they can really differentiate themselves here and maybe dominate even more in the South Bay. But I still think that's a slower growth proposition than battling for territory with the other Bay Area papers. We can speculate, but I'm sure their marketing department has done quite a bit of study in this area, and they're basing their strategy on some hard data.

    Yeah, the perception of San Jose being "B league" is a problem. But if we're talking about a limited cultural presence in the South Bay, I think demographics is the biggest problem. Here are some demographic factors that I think contribute to the South Bay's stay-at-home tendency:

    - almost entirely suburban, not urban, meaning, in general, long commutes to cultural events and little access to public transportation
    - large percentage of high-tech workers working long hours
    - tendency for high-tech workers to enjoy at-home technology based entertainment such as video games, sci-fi movies and TV, surfing the net (BigSoccer doesn't count, that's culture :)
    - suburbs means higher child/parent ratio and less time for parents to attend cultural events

    Oh yeah, getting back to my point in case anyone's still reading. I think San Jose has come a long way in the last 15 years or so in establishing a cultural presence despite the unfavorable demographics. This trend can continue or it can start to reverse. The Merc has a vested interest in seeing the trend continue in an upswing. Ultimately, it makes it easier for them to sell papers in the greater Bay Area. I wish they'd play that card a little more by giving a little more push to the pro sports teams that are actually based in San Jose.
     

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